Red vs. Blue
Red vs Blue is an extremely popular machinima series. Its plot revolves around the never-ending war between the Red Team and the Blue Team. It is a situation comedy parodying Halo 1 and Halo 2 multiplayer, normally taking place in Blood Gulch. Season 3's time travel plot used Marathon to represent the past, and Halo 2 for the future. The series currently takes place in Coagulation, the future Blood Gulch. Made by Rooster Teeth Productions. It is released for download from their website as a series of short episodes, and individual seasons are sold as DVDs. Characters Red Team Sarge :*Armor Color: Red :*Voice Actor: Matt Hullum Sarge is the typical gruff sergeant with a southern accent, but over the course of the series, he slowly evolves into a mad scientist, building robots and giving people new bodies. He is the only one serious about the war between Red and Blue, and is the craziest member of the team. His battle plans tend to be delusively grandiose and seriously flawed, and he overly favours complicated plans that involve heavy casualties in his own forces, particularly Grif, sometimes even when there is no actual problem to solve. He is also rather paranoid, and often concocts implausible theories to explain simple events. He is prone to make incompetent blunders in his plans, which will sometimes earn criticism from Simmons or Donut; more often Grif. He displays frequent periods of nostalgia and compares his plans to notable figures from film, such as John Wayne and Indiana Jones. From late in season 2 until the end of season 4, Sarge attempts to retrieve the orders from Red Command that are stored in Lopez's head. When he finally succeeds in obtaining those orders in episode 77 and discovers that they are useless, he becomes temporarily despondent until Grif offers to have Sarge insult him. Despite his flaws as a leader, Sarge has managed to capture Tex as well as fight off, with the assistance of Caboose, the attacking hordes of soldiers in Battle Creek. He is also able to assemble robots from scratch. He has also performed surgery on Simmons and Grif, although he used a diagram of a cow as a reference for Grif, for lack of a human diagram. However, he cannot repair Chupathingy, the Red Team's Warthog, and Simmons 2.0 suffers from a few glitches. He also makes some false anatomical claims to Caboose and Donut, such as how the body can produce its own oxygen under stress, and how the body can create more blood after losing quite a lot. Sarge has criticized Grif and praised Simmons for the same action. When Grif saves Sarge's life by performing cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) after being shot in the head by Caboose in season 1, Sarge initially thanks Simmons. However, upon learning who had actually resuscitated him, Sarge proceeds to berate Grif at length for the logicality of using CPR "for a bullet wound in the head". Rooster Teeth had initially considered making this event a turning point in Sarge's relationship with Grif, but decided in the end that friendship would be too far-fetched. Nevertheless, when Tucker severely injures Grif by accidentally running him over with Sheila in episode 33, Sarge does save Grif's life by transplanting Simmons' organs into him. Since then, Sarge has continued to make battle plans involving Grif's death, and at one point admits that he has tried to kill Grif while the latter is asleep on more than one occasion. In the second episode, he also dismissed Grif's claims that the animals known as the puma and the walrus exist. Pvt. Dick Simmons :*Armor Color: Maroon :*Voice Actor: Gustavo Sorola Reasonably smart and rational, Simmons is the level-headed straight man of the Red Team. His main quirk is that he is a compulsive sycophant toward Sarge, despite the latter's psychopathic and frequently delusional leadership; in episode 40, Simmons states that he relies on Sarge "for love and support". As a result, Grif frequently calls Simmons a "kiss-ass". Simmons and Grif have a love-hate relationship, and spend much of their time bickering and chatting with each other, with Simmons reacting to the various outrageous statements that Grif makes. In episode 38, Tucker hears them bickering on his radio (as he was still tuned in after Lopez's love song was broadcast), and concludes that Simmons and Grif are in love, and he wonders why they cannot see it. In season 4, Simmons is shown to be very self-conscious; in episode 70, he runs in tears back to the Blue Base when Church claims that Grif is intelligent and that Simmons is self-important. In episode 54, he claims that he can mentally multiply any two large numbers, and gives an incorrect answer when tested, but maintains an air of confidence in doing so. He has also not used the bathroom for three years, claiming that he only uses the bathroom at home, because he is shy. According to him, 'It's going to be an eventful homecoming'. Aside from supporting Sarge's flawed schemes, Simmons usually avoids foolish statements. Often exhibiting common sense, he has managed to devise battle plans that actually work. He is a brave enough warrior when necessary, but, unlike Sarge, is not a fanatic, and he has expressed an unwillingness to die for foolish reasons. Since Grif is generally the one whose death is part of Sarge's plans, Simmons has less to worry about than he thinks. After the Reds lose Lopez, Sarge surgically changes Simmons into a cyborg so that they will have someone with better capability to repair things. Sarge dismissed Grif's idea of getting a new robot from Command, claiming that it could be reprogrammed 'as easily as Lopez'. For a while, Sarge calls him "Simmons 2.0", but, in season 4, Sarge reverts to calling him just "Simmons" again. Simmons' leftover body parts — except for his spleen, which Sarge decides to inflate and use for "general recreation and esprit de corps" (which Donut slips on) — are used to save Grif's life when he is run over by Sheila, driven by Tucker. At one point in the series, Grif comes to believe that Simmons is "of a Latino persuasion", presumably because he thinks that Simmons is a Hispanic name. Simmons is, in fact, Dutch-Irish; the whole issue is an in-joke based on the Mexican ethnicity of Simmons' voice actor, Gustavo Sorola. This running gag still appears as recently as episode 63, in which Donut, pretending to be an automatic telephone response system, says to Simmons, "For unconfirmed Dutch-Irish, press one too, as in also." In season 4, Simmons runs afoul of Sarge's fickle nature: When he insists that Sheila is still roaming the gulch, Sarge declares him insane and demotes him. Having lost his purpose in life, Simmons suffers a breakdown, exiles himself from the Red Team, paints his armor mostly blue, and, assisted by Sheila, begins to wage a one-man war against his former teammates. Simmons actually succeeds in "capturing" Grif, forcing Sarge and Donut to launch a rescue operation. But the two are foiled by Church, who suddenly returns to Blood Gulch. Although Simmons attempts to hide his true identity from Church, the latter privately reveals to Sheila that he has recognized Simmons all along. After apparently hearing Church's conversation with Vic Jr., Simmons returns to the Red Base to relay information. With the rest of the Reds reluctant to accept him back, Simmons changes into maroon armor. Nevertheless, after a quick trial, Sarge imposes a hefty fine for treason and insubordination, to be split between himself and Grif. Going forward, Sarge frequently calls Simmons a traitor. Pvt. Dexter Grif :*Armor Color: Orange :*Voice Actor: Geoff Ramsey The wisecracking loudmouth of the Reds, Grif is self-centered, acerbic, lazy, and somewhat cowardly. Despised by his teammates Sarge and Simmons, he has the lowest social and military rank on the Red Team. Simmons and he often bicker or chat with each other about the various situations that the Reds encounter. Although Grif's laziness does create problems for the Reds, Sarge always blames him when things go wrong, regardless of Grif's (or anyone else's) actual guilt in the matter. With respect to personality, Grif is fairly brash and has a flair for melodrama. He is quick to make silly theories or insults, even toward people who could clearly kill him without hesitation. He is also a coward, panicking and fleeing at the first sign of danger. Additionally, he mispronounces words like both, which he pronounces as bolth in episode 14; and margin, which he pronounces as margarine in episode 55, and he believes a baker's dozen to be 48. He also claimed not to know what jogging is, althoug this may be a refrence to his lack of exercise. Not completely clueless, however, he is often the first one to point out the flaws in Sarge's plans; largely because Simmons never criticizes Sarge, and many of these plans involve Grif's demise. Although Sarge and Simmons regard Grif as unintelligent, the likelihood is that Grif simply has a bad habit of speaking or acting before thinking. In fact Grif is capable of being more responsible than he lets on; when Simmons defected and began to wage a one-man war against his former teammates, Grif was the only member of Red Team who tried to actually solve the problem. Despite his constant flippant disregard for Sarge's authority, Grif seems to care at least a little about Sarge, as he was quite upset when Caboose almost killed Sarge. When the useless instructions from Red Command cause Sarge to become depressed in episode 77, Grif attempts to lift Sarge's spirits by suggesting that Sarge insult him. Physically, a lifetime of smoking and eating processed snacks has left Grif badly out of shape for a soldier in the military, and he is barely able to run 300 feet without running out of breath. After being accidentally run over by Sheila, driven by Tucker, Grif had to have most of his body parts replaced with donor organs left over from Simmons' cyborg operation. Even this event, however, has not compelled him to quit his bad habits. Grif has a running gag in that he and Simmons both call shotgun on vehicles several times, but Simmons almost always manages to say it first, much to Grif's displeasure. The only exception to this is in episode 77, after the ship from Red Command lands on Donut, to the indifference of the other Reds. Simmons merely comments that the ship has arrived, and Grif calls shotgun. Grif's presence on the Red Team is actually not by choice. When it was determined that the Blues had one more recruit than the Reds, the first universal draft was held, and the unlucky draftee was none other than Grif.1 As evidenced by his hesitantly optimistic guess as to why Sarge gathered Simmons and him outside the base in episode 2, Grif would love to call the whole thing good and go home (once trying to intentionally get himself court-martialed). As also evidenced by his response to Sarge's less-than-friendly answer, he is familiar with being the object of sarcasm. He wears orange armor. Popular opinion says it's yellow, but it has been confirmed to be orange. Pvt. Franklin Delano Donut :*Armor Color: Pink (Light Red according to him) :*Voice Actor: Dan Godwin Donut is the red team's resident rookie, and no one likes him except Caboose, who can't get "Private Donut" memorized and uses different pastry names, like "Captin Cinnamon Bun". Upon arriving in Blood Gulch, he immediately fell for a fool's errand, set by Simmons and Grif, who told him to get 'elbow grease' and 'headlight fluid' (he didn't believe them about the elbow grease, but he did about the headlight fluid). He mistook the Blue Base for the 'store', and lost his way several times. His general naïveté, garrulousness, and cheerfulness tend to annoy his teammates. Injured when Tex attacks the Red Base, Donut is consequently airlifted out of the gulch for medical treatment. Pleased that he captured the Blues' flag, Red Command gives him his own armor color, which becomes a sensitive issue for him: He insists that his new armor is "lightish red", even though it is clearly pink to everyone else. In season 2, however, he does eventually accept it as pink. In fact, he even starts taking a liking to it, as "his old armor used to chafe his thighs something awful, but the crotch of pink armor is surprisingly roomy." As the series progresses, the armor color and the trauma he received from Tex seem to take their toll on Donut's mind; his speech and personality become increasingly effeminate. He also becomes more childish, pretending to be a secret agent during a reconnaissance operation, and later sticking his hand in machinery despite repeated warnings. Donut is also prone to long conversations or convoluted narratives. In season 2, he twice attempts to engage another Red in idle chatter, to little success (even asking Sarge for his armor when the latter dies). When blasted forward into the future, he attempts to organize a play to explain events, which falls apart due to Caboose's stupidity, and Grif's indifference. He also concocts an implausible tale to distract the Blues in episode 53, and, in episode 70, falsely portrays himself as a hero, supposedly rescuing the other Reds from the Blue Base. Despite these flaws, Donut sometimes demonstrates alertness or knowledge beyond that of his teammates. For example, in season 2, he is the only one to suggest correctly that Church is a ghost (and hence why Sarge went mad, and Lopez ran away). Initially unable, as with the other Reds, to understand Lopez, he later demonstrates the ability both to understand and speak some Spanish. However, in episode 75, it becomes clear that this ability is limited, as his Spanish is poor, and he cannot understand the instructions in Spanish from Red Command. Left to his own devices when the other Reds leave him behind in search of a distress signal (due to the fact that the Warthog has only three seats), Donut manages to steal O'Malley's hovercraft and catch up to his team. In addition, he is the only one who supports Simmons' assertion that Sheila is still roaming Blood Gulch in the future (Grif also saw her, but denied it to make Simmons look bad). In episode 75, Donut reveals his awareness of Vic's vasectomy, but it is unknown how he learns of this information; his stealth encounter with Doc and O'Malley in season 2 did not include the conversation in which Vic revealed his sterility. Nevertheless, his insights are ignored by his team. He does, however, earn notes of praise from Sarge from time to time, most notably in episode 57 after stealing O'Malley's hovercraft and running over the pursuing robots. After Simmons' exile from the Red Team, Donut replaces him as Sarge's right-hand man, a move that Sarge quickly comes to regret. Much to Sarge's displeasure, Donut suggests various changes, including the incorporation of more positive reinforcement and the redecoration of the Red Base. When a large ship from Red Command lands on Donut at the end of episode 77, his teammates seem indifferent, and it turns out that Donut has fallen to a world that exists below the box canyon in which they are stationed in. Although he is secretly gay, it isn't that secret. Blue Team Private Lavernius Tucker :*Armor Color: Cyan :*Voice Actor: Jason Saldaña The most average of the group, although somewhat of a teenager in a way. It is implied he is the only black person in the series, and he is the wielder of the "great weapon" (Energy Sword). He never gets to use the sniper rifle. In episode 73, Tucker became ill. The Blue Team then called in Doc to diagnose/treat Tucker. Since Doc was still possessed by O'Malley, Church used Andy as leverage; if O'Malley became hostile, Andy would explode. O'Malley then agreed to allow Doc to diagnose Tucker without harrassment. His diagnosis of Tucker was that he had impregnanted by the Alien, who had implanted a parasitic embryo. In episode 77, the alien baby was born and Tucker fell into a coma, which he came out of in episode 82. Private Leonard L. Church :*Armor Color:Light Blue :*Voice Actor:Burnie Burns Church is the cynical en facto leader of the Blue Team, which he took command of after the death of Captain Butch Flowers. This is interesting, as he seems to hate most social contact, and pretty much just everyone. Early in the series Caboose accidentally kills him and he comes back as a ghost, eventually taking over a robot body built by Sarge. Ironically, Church is a horrible sniper, even though he is the only member of the Blue Team that is a certified sniper. Church's angry and cynical disposition was modeled after Gustavo Sorola, who voices the character Simmons. To emphasize this trait, Rooster Teeth added Caboose to the series (at first he was only going to be there a short time) as "a catalyst for getting Church pissed off".Burns, et al., 2003, Audio Commentary, episode 4. . Another character that frequently annoys him is the Alien Baby, who Church has on numerous occasions threatened to kill. In episode 78, Church tried to kill the baby by "stepping on its neck and shooting it in the head"Season 5 Episode 78.. However, he was stopped by Doc, who has apparently taken a liking to the Alien Baby. Private Michael J. Caboose :*Armor Color: Blue :*Voice Actor: Joel Heyman Prior to the series, Caboose was born and raised in a colony on the moon with 17 siblings. He joined the army after mistaking a recruiting centre for college and was then deployed in Blood Gulch, which he thinks is France.Rooster Teeth Productions (2005). Character profiles. In Red vs. Blue Season Three DVD. Buda, Texas: Rooster Teeth Productions. Originally, he was intended to play a minor role in the series but, fans reacted very well to Caboose's antics and moments of stupidity so the writers made him a permanent character.,Smith. As the series progressed, Caboose's intelligence gradually decreased and his voice began to sound higher in pitch. Caboose made his first appearance in episide 3 along with Sheila. He soon annoys the Blue Team's self-appointed leader, Church, and is consequently tasked with guarding the flag inside the team's base and waiting for a nonexistent general. Meanwhile, at the Red base Simmons and Grif have sent their team's rookie, Donut, on a fool's errand for elbow grease and "headlight fluid". In a mutual misunderstanding, Donut mistakes the Blue Base as the store and Caboose as the shopkeeper, while Caboose mistakes Donut for the "general" and allows him to take the flag. In the ensuing conflict, Caboose accidentally kills Church while using Sheila and narrowly escapes a bombing run that disables the tank. In the final episode of season 1, Caboose becomes possessed by O'Malley, a rogue AI who transmits himself to Caboose via radio before his original host, Tex, died. Season 2 continues Caboose's character development. Parts of episodes 31-33 take place inside Caboose's mind, which Church and Tex explore as ghosts in an attempt to kill O'Malley. There, they encounter Caboose's incorrect mental images of other characters. In his mind, Caboose believes that he is intelligent, Church his foul-mouthed best friend, Tucker stupid, Grif yellow-armored, and Donut female; and that Sarge speaks in what is actually a pirate accent. Once O'Malley left Caboose, he declined further in intelligenceRooster Teeth Productions (2005). Character profiles. In Red vs. Blue Season ThreeDVD. Buda, Texas: Rooster Teeth Productions., even going as far as loading his guns with crayons. Sarge states in episode 39 that it "sounds like O'Malley took some of the furniture when he left". At the end of season 2, Caboose becomes stranded with Sarge in an unknown location when a teleporter malfunctions. In season 3, Caboose and Sarge escape from the Grunts, a set of respawning Red and Blue teams constantly fighting each other. After a bomb blasts most of the characters into the future, but Church into the past, Church learns of The Great Destroyer from Gary, a computer, who says that The Great Destroyer "will be known as the stupidest life form in the universe" and the "blue being". Enitially, Church assumes that this description refers to Caboose, but later events and the introduction of a new character, the Alien, cause the to think otherwise. After the Blues encounter the Alien and learn of its quest, Caboose is sent along with Tucker because Church "saw a chance to get rid of Caboose and took it"; after the quest fails, they return to Blood Gulch. In episode 78, Caboose then develops what seems to be anemia after "donating" half a gallon of blood to Tucker's Alien baby. The only helpful ability Caboose appears to have is superhuman strength, which Tucker and Church believe is "God's way of compensating" for his mental disabilities. Throughout the series, Caboose is generally portrayed as relatively passive. However, on occasion he will have brief episodes of violence in which he speaks in an exceptionally low voice. This occurs both during and after his encounter with O'Malley. In episode 40, Caboose "tapped" into his violent side (in order to save both himself and Sarge from the Grunts) by thinking of angry kittens covered in spikes and other things he considered mean. Tex (Alison) :*Armor Color: Black :*Voice Actor(s): Burnie BurnsWhen the character uses a voice filter in episodes 11 and 12., Kathleen Zuelch Though she is associated with the Blue Team, she is not really a member, but rather a freelance mercenary paid to help them. Her backstory and previous relationship with Church (ex-girlfriend) are key elements in the plot. Her common nickname is Tex; according to Church, this is because she is from Texas. However, in an experimental program she was codenamed Agent Nevada. Although she lacks the more eccentric personality traits of the other Blood Gulch characters, her violent nature makes her anything but normal. With her Special Operations training, she is the most competently lethal member of the Blood Gulch cast, with the possible exception of Sheila. Some time before the events of Red vs. Blue, Tex was part of an experimental program that implanted AI constructs into the suits of soldiers to enhance military performance. Other known members of this unit are Wyoming and York. According to Tex, everyone in the unit was codenamed after one of the 49 United States (Florida apparently no longer exists ) (she was codenamed Nevada). In the mini-series focussed on Tex, Red vs. Blue: Out of Mind, it was revealed that the program was a complete failure. Some of the AIs turned rogue and it was decided that they were to be removed and destroyed. However, several of the AIs resisted, including Tex's, and the program managers chose to instead kill the subjects. Tex and her AI, O'Malley, fought back and escaped the facility. Somewhere in the time gap between her escape and Red vs. Blue, Tex became a freelance mercenary and Church's girlfriend. Grif's Sister :*Armor Color: Yellow :*Voice Actor: Unknown Grif's sister shows up in Episode 81. She was the one tapping inside the crashed Pelican that landed on Private Donut. She felt scared about being alone, so she joined the war. When Sarge realized this, he stated "She's a Grif alright." It appears she enjoys drinking since in episode 83 Grif mentions that "ladies drink free" to which she cheers enthusatically. She is then silenced by Grif who says, "not you". She also appears to be something of a slut since she responds to "we'll just f*** this one" where 'this one' is refering to her with "Whoohoo!" and also comments later that she thought about having a kid just so she would not be known as the "girl that's had six abortions." She was sent by her command to replace Church after he was promoted to Captain after Butch Flower's death. This is also when Simmons starts proclaiming that Sarge is dead and they buried him alive. She also complains that she dosen't know what girly laps are, repeating to Simmons "What the f*** are girly laps?" (Episode 84) She is also colorblind. This was revealed by Grif in Episode 84, when Sister gets upset over Simmons calling red command which is not "their guy." This means she is on the Blue Team, which Grif sends her to join in episode 85. The most common response any character in the series has to a line of Grif's Sister's dialogue is by far "Wait.. What?" This happens almost every time she talks. Sheila :*Full Name: Sheila, originally Phyllis (M808B Main Battle Tank) :*Voice Actor: Yomary Cruz Sheila, originally named Phyllis, is the AI behind the Blue Team's Scorpion tank. She first appeared in episode 3 with fellow Blue Team member Caboose. Ironically, he is the only Blue Team member that can drive Shiela, despite his lack of intelligence. She is friendly and cheerful, but, being a tank, she has a habit of blowing people up, including her own teammate Church. Sheila is bombed out of action by Sarge's dropship early in the first season, but is repaired by Tex several episodes later. Donut later disables her again by pitching a plasma grenade into her cockpit at the end of season 1. Sheila shows some indications of liking Caboose early in season 1. However, in the middle of season 2, she falls in love with the Red Team's robot, Lopez. Before long, the two attempt to lead a robot revolution against the humans in response to perceived abuse that they have received: being constantly blown up or possessed by ghosts. This idea stemmed from Church's attempt to prevent them from doing so, in his endeavours to change the past. After O'Malley kidnaps Lopez, however, she puts aside her differences in order to help the soldiers retrieve him. Because Sheila cannot fit through the teleporter (due to the fact that her AI was hardwired into the tank by her manufacturers), she remains behind on Blood Gulch while the Reds and Blues leave to pursue O'Malley. After a brief encounter with a time-traveling Church, who whispers a plan to her, Sheila powers down and presumably remains alone as the sole inhabitant of Blood Gulch for the better part of a millennium. It is thought that she may be the source of the distress signal that the Reds hear in season 3, as Church's plan included the words "a thousand years". A deleted scene on the Season Four DVD confirms that she is ordered to send out the distress signal and disguises her voice. In addition, all of the Reds except Sarge see her drive past the Red Base in Blood Gulch upon their return. When Sarge demotes Simmons for his talk of "imaginary" tanks, she helps Simmons attempt his revenge on the Reds since she is unable to recognize the Red Team as her enemies due to faltering memory units. She also expresses dissatisfaction when Church later collects all the vehicles available to the Blue Base in Blood Gulch; Church perceives her reaction as jealousy (this scene was relocated to the Deleted Scenes section of the Season 4 DVD for continuity reasons). Caboose tells the other Blues in episode 54 that Andy has known Sheila from previous encounters, but gives no specific explanation. Caboose brings Andy back to the gulch in season 4, but no interaction between Sheila and Andy has yet occurred to support or refute Caboose's claim. Rooster Teeth stated that Andy was originally to be Sheila's ex-boyfriend; however, the idea was pushed to Season 5, along with, according to Hullum, "a really interesting character trait related to that relationship with Sheila".Rooster Teeth Productions (2006). Audio commentary. Red vs, Blue Season 4 DVD. Buda, Texas: Rooster Teeth Productions.. Other Lopez the Heavy Lopez is a spanish-speaking robot built by Sarge. After the Blue team captured him, he turned to their side due to a very strange series of events. Eventually falls in love with Sheila. When the cataclysmic explosion occurs, his body is destroyed, leaving him a head in alliance with O'Malley. How he gets around/makes other robots for O'Malley is unknown. Red/Blue radio support Vic The radio support of both the Red and Blue armies, though the respective armies don't know this. Unlike the other characters, he is a cinematic from the campaign - a crewman on the Pillar of Autumn. Often starts conversations with "Yello, Yello. Cumin. Yello". Voiced by Burnie Burns. Medical Super Private 1st Class "Doc" Dufresne Medic sent to treat injuries on both sides (although ironically his healing skills are rendered useless) and is remnicient of donut in that he is a bit of a neatfreak/pacifist. He was soon possessed by O'Malley and often engages in Gollum-like conversations with it. Wears purple armor (red + blue = purple). Voiced by Matt Hullum. O'Malley An evil body-possessing AI. The first body he possessed was Tex, but has moved to Caboose, "Doc", and most recently Shiela. His goal is to destroy the universe and is somewhat a more stereotypical/comical type of evil. His original name was Omega and after being placed in Tex (Alison)'s armor, his name was changed to Om-Ali (or O'Malley). Gary A knock-knock-joke-loving computer. The keeper of the Great Weapon (Energy Sword). Andy :*Full Name: Andrew D. KaboomRooster Teeth Productions (2006). Character profiles. In Red vs. Blue Season Four DVD. Buda, Texas: Rooster Teeth Productions. :*Voice Actor: Nathan Zellner Andy is the vulgar, short-tempered, and rude bomb built by Tex using parts of an protocol robot with the purpose to kill O´malley. Andy frequently expresses a desire to destroy things by detonating himself, much to the worry of the Blue Team, who attempts to calm him down through a "therapy session". However, Andy later wishes to avoid detonation when Tex threatens to detonate him if he will not translate for them. This desire resurfaces later when Andy attempts to convince Church to let him guard, and in the process, destroy the Blue Base. Caboose reveals that Andy had told him about the Reds' secret meeting, but the rest of the Blues refuse to believe Caboose at first, as Andy remains silent when they approach. However, he has an outburst when Gary insults him and reveals that the two "are not on speaking terms". Because Tex built Andy from the remains of an old protocol droid found on the perimeter of the base, he is able to understand the Alien ("Crunchbite"). As a result, he joins the sacred quest group to act as a translator. After the failure of the quest, Caboose brings him back to Blood Gulch. In episode 76, the Reds replace Andy with first Lopez's head, and then a skull so he can translate a recording for them. This leads Caboose to beleive that Andy has turned into a boy and then died. Andy is very self-conscious about his weight. In episode 76, after O'Malley repeatedly calls him "bowling ball", Andy asks Caboose if he is that fat, claiming that he has been working out. When Sarge steals Andy, he remarks that Andy is much lighter than the last time he tried to pick him up and Andy is relieved that someone has noticed. 'Grunts' Also known as Zealots, are strange characters were introduced when Sarge and Caboose went through the teleporter after O'Malley. It seems they are locked into a constant game of CTF, worship the flag, and seem to make fun of Halo gamers in general. They are last seen running onto Sidewinder and teabagging O'Malley into oblivion. All of them survived the explosion due to their ability to infinitely respawn and went on to appear in Season 4. The Alien Also named "Crunch Bite" by Caboose.An alien that first appears at the end of Season 3 and goes into Season 4. Speaks in blargs and honks, which are only understood by Andy. Caboose refers to him as "Crunchbite" after he bit him, and others suspect his name is "Honk-Honk" after an attempt to communicate with him. He is killed by the bounty hunter Wyoming after flying off in an undentified spacecraft. He had the habit to stare at Tucker while he was sleeping, it was later revealed that he inserted a parasitic embryo which was born at the end of Season 4. Junior The Alien baby first appeared in episode 77, in voice only, as the result of the Alien impregnating Tucker. In episode 78 it again appeared in voice only while it was wrecking the base after Doc fed it half a gallon of Caboose's blood. Its first visual appearance was in episode 80 as a mini version of an Elite with cyan and blue armor. It was recently featured in its first PSA titled "Going to the Movies" where it attacked Simmons. It was also revealed in "Going to the Movies" that Tucker had named it "Junior". Wyoming A British bounty hunter who was in the same augmentation program as Tex. He is originally hired by Vic to kill Tucker, but fails. He survived the explosion and was also thrown forward in time. After killing the Elite, he took off running with Tex close behind. Production The writing process for the series has changed over time. Early in season 1, Burns wrote the episode scripts from week to week, with minimal planning in advance; major plot events were conceived shortly before they were filmed.Burns, et al., Red vs. Blue Season One, Audio Commentary. For the second season, Matt Hullum became a main writer.Burns and Hullum, Red vs. Blue Season Two, Audio Commentary. A rough plot outline is now written before a season begins, although the actual content of an individual episode is still decided on a more short-term basis.Konow, 3. Because Red vs. Blue is loosely based on the Halo universe, Rooster Teeth encountered some difficulties when trying to synchronize events in the series with the release of Halo 2. Aside from a few scenes created using Marathon Infinity, Marathon 2, and the PC version of Halo, Red vs. Blue is mostly filmed with interconnected Xbox consoles. As the series title suggests, the videos are largely set in the Halo map Blood Gulch and its Halo 2 counterpart, Coagulation. However, some episodes have been filmed on other maps, including Sidewinder from Halo and Zanzibar from Halo 2. Within a multiplayer game session, the people controlling the avatars "puppet" their characters, moving them around, firing weapons, and performing other actions as dictated by the script, and in synchronization with the episode's dialogue, which is recorded ahead of time. The "camera" is simply another player, whose first-person perspective is recorded raw to a computer. As the recording occurs within the game, a few different bugs and post-production techniques have been exploited in order to achieve desired visual effects. In particular, Adobe Premiere Pro is used to edit the audio and video together, impose letterboxing to hide the camera player's head-up display, add the titles and fade-to-black screens, and create some visual effects that cannot be accomplished in-game.Burns, et al., Red vs. Blue Season One, Audio Commentary; Moltenbrey. Summary Season 1 Main Article: Red vs. Blue (Season 1) The delicate balance of indifference in Blood Gulch is disrupted by the introduction of new players to the "conflict". On the Red side, a recruit named Donut enters the fray and manages to capture the Blue flag on his first day. For the Blues, a rookie named Caboose arrives alongside a battle tank named Sheila, and they manage to accidentally kill Church on their first day. In response, Blue Command hires a mercenary named Tex to recapture the Blue flag. Church briefly returns as a ghost to warn his teammates about Tex, who soon arrives and goes on the attack against the Reds. After severly injuring Donut, Tex succeeds in returning the Blue flag, but is captured as a result. Church again appears to explain that Tex is actually his former girlfriend, whose mind is partially under the control of a psychotic AI. Church organizes a successful rescue mission, but not without its problems, and spends the rest of the season attempting to remove the AI from Tex's head. His attempt to warn the Reds of Tex's pending attack fails and, much to his horror, she is killed by Donut with a Plasma Grenade. Tex's AI manages to escape her body, and begins to take possession of Caboose. Season 2 Main Article: Red vs. Blue (Season 2) Three months later, Frank Dufresne (soon nicknamed "Doc"), a medic sent by both Red and Blue Commands to tend to the medical needs of both teams, arrives in the gulch and proves completely unhelpful. The Reds attack the Blues and manage to take Doc as a hostage, but soon tire of his personality and ditch him in the middle of the canyon. Church is still trying to get used to his new, stolen robot body, which he eventually loses when Lopez regains control and resists further attempts to possess him. Donut is captured by the Blues, who force the Reds to build two new robot bodies in exchange for his return. Meanwhile, both teams are menaced by Tex's evil AI, O'Malley, despite the best efforts of Tex's ghost and the Blue team to stop him. This culminates in a Mexican standoff between the Reds and Blues, following the revelation that both teams are in fact secretly controlled by the same army. O'Malley resurfaces in Doc's body and sets out to conquer the universe, kidnapping Lopez and escaping through a teleporter. The Red and Blue teams call a truce and form several two-man teams to pursue O'Malley, but something goes wrong with the teleporter, and the teams are separated and sent to different worlds outside Blood Gulch. Season 3 Main Article:Red vs. Blue (Season 3) After regrouping on Sidewinder (after a brief encounter in Battle Creek, with two groups of immortal, respawning, flag-obsessed Reds and Blues called "grunts" by Rooster Teeth), the Reds and Blues join forces again to confront and defeat O'Malley, only to have a reality-shattering bomb destroy the present and propel everyone except for Church into the future (Halo 2). Church is thrown into the past (Marathon). While the Reds and Blues continue to battle O'Malley in the future at his fortress, Church goes on a time-traveling odyssey, where he learns of a prophecy that a blue being known as the Great Destroyer will use a Great Weapon to bring the Great Doom to billions of people at the point in the future where everyone else has ended up. Church decides to time-travel to Blood Gulch during the events of the past two seasons and alter the past in order to prevent the great doom along with most of the other negative events that have occurred in the storyline. However, in a classic causality loop, Church realizes that his interference is what caused most or all of the problems in Blood Gulch in the first place. Giving up on trying to change the past, he travels back to Sidewinder and rejoins the main group just as the bomb goes off, so that he can be blown into the future along with them. Shortly after the teams are reunited, O'Malley lays siege to the captured fortress with an army of deadly robots, only to have them obliterated by an unknown being, before he himself is seemingly killed. The Red team leaves mid-battle in search of a mysterious distress call, without informing the Blues. They arrive back at Blood Gulch, much to Griff's dismay. The season ends on a cliffhanger as an Elite is seen creeping up on an unsuspecting Church. Season 4 As the Red Team re-explores Blood Gulch, Simmons' insistence that Sheila still roams the canyon leads to his exile from the group. Painting himself mostly blue and taking command of the empty Blue Base and Sheila, he takes Griff hostage, later confessing to him that he believes that Sheila might be hiding something. Back at the fortress, the Blue Team attempts to confront the new Alien, only to experience a series of humiliating defeats until Caboose manages to befriend him. The Alien reveals that he has been on a sacred quest to save his people, and has come to the fortress to retrieve The Great Weapon (an Energy Sword), which only Tucker can now activate, since he accidentally discovered it first. Threatening to kill everyone otherwise, the Alien forces Tucker, Andy, and Caboose to partake of his quest, with Tex trailing and then joining them. Arriving at their final destination, the team finds a temple occupied by the Grunts from Battle Creek. As Tex defeats them, Tucker uses the sword to open a gate to a flying ship, of which the Alien quickly takes command. Wyoming suddenly re-appears, however, and shoots the ship down before fleeing with Tex in pursuit. Meanwhile, Church returns to the Blue Base in Blood Gulch and encounters the blue Simmons, whom he pretends not to recognize, and comes into contact with a distant descendant of Vic, who scoffs at Church's mention of Blue Command. Tucker, Caboose, and Andy return to the gulch, and inform Church of the events at the temple. Simmons returns to the Red Base, and attempts to relay information learned from Vic Jr about the war. At the Blue Base, Tucker becomes ill for an unknown reason, and Church is forced to call Doc for help. On his arrival, O'Malley negotiates a deal to exchange Doc's aid for something to be named later. The Reds find Lopez, who had returned to the canyon with O'Malley, and discover that the instructions that Red Command had planted inside his head can only be played in Spanish. While Church is confirming Doc's diagnosis that Tucker is pregnant, Sarge distracts Caboose and steals Andy to translate the plans. Tucker regains alertness and complains of stomach pains. Church, upon hearing of Andy’s disappearance, becomes enraged at the whole situation. As he confronts the Reds with Sheila, Sarge radios Command for reinforcements, despite having heard the translation of the uninformative instructions. Andy reveals that the Alien had the ability to impregnate others with parasitic embryos, and Caboose radios Church to tell him that Tucker has given birth (a higher-pitched alien language is heard off-screen); and that O'Malley had left Doc after Sarge had contacted Command. As Church runs back to the Blue Base, a ship crashes into the gulch (right on top of Donut). This marks the end of the season at episode 77. Season 5 Season Five marks the debut of Grif's sister, who is clad in yellow armour. Afraid of being alone during the war, she arrives at Blood Gulch in a Pelican. It is soon revealed that she was sent by Blue Command and is in fact a blue recruit. Unfortunately, as a result of being color-blind, she ends up on the wrong side, in the Red base. Sent to replace Church as Blue Team's leader after the killing of Captain Butch Flowers, she tells the Reds about this order. The Reds misinterpret this, and decide that she was sent to replace Sarge, who is still very much alive. So they buried the still living Sarge, much to Simmon's joy of being promoted. However, after learning out the truth, Simmons attempts to retrieve Sarge, but fails to find his body and Grif sends his vulnerable sister to the Blues to protect her due to the Red's inefficiency. Meanwhile, Donut finds himself trapped in an underground cavern with two dead bodies, in which he foolishly waits for them to wake up. Impact on machinima ''Red vs. Blue is widely credited with attracting public attention to machinima. Although examples had existed since the 1990s, Clive Thompson credits Red vs. Blue as "the first to break out of the underground".Thompson, 2. Tavares, Gil, and Roque call it machinima's "first big success".Tavares, Gil, & Roque, 4. Thompson notes that "Microsoft has been so strangely solicitous that when it was developing the sequel to Halo last year, the designers actually inserted a special command — a joystick button that makes a soldier lower his weapon — designed solely to make it easier for Rooster Teeth to do dialogue." The series has inspired other machinima productions, including The Codex, Fire Team Charlie, and This Spartan Life. Whitley. Sources Related Links Internal *Rooster Teeth External *Red vs Blue - Official site *The Unofficial Red vs Blue Resource Site *The Cult of Red vs Blue - News article *Wikipedia Article *Wikipedia Article, Geoff Ramsey of Red vs. Blue *Fan Art *Red Vs. Who? - Bungie interviews Burnie Burns about the series. Category:Games Category:Machinima